Why It Took So Long for Me to Get Married

Serial Fiancee and Mother Superior, partners in crime

Had a nice chat with the chiropractor today (after killing myself doing die-cutting) after all his patients left. Mentioned how Christine Baranski (since "Cybill" and now in "Momma Mia") reminds me of my dear friend NamelessHussy. I'm not allowed to talk about certain aspects of our time together. If she wants to tell stories on herself, that's up to her (ask me to remind you, Dear). But in "Momma Mia" they actually call Baranski's character a "serial fiancee." I'm just sayin'.

NamelessHussy used to say she liked to go out with me, because when she went out with other women, they just used her to attract men. NH would tongue-lash them away, and the other women would provide these reprobates with a soft landing. I didn't operate that way. If we went out together and some creep tried to chat her up in some obnoxious fashion (and NH particularly disliked the braggarts who tossed out their resumes as if they meant something), we operated like a well-drilled volleyball duo: she set 'em up, and I spiked them - wham!

Example: Oxford cloth shirt and power tie started in on NH with a "Why won't you go out me?" barrage and she finallly wheeled on him. "I won't go out with you because you wear those Euro-fag tasseled loafers." He was now dead to her, but he's still hanging in mid-air. He turned to the fat girl with the pleasant but dull face and tried the sympathy angle. "I had to wear these. I fell out of bed and hurt my foot," said leeringly as though there was something more than sleeping going on. "If you were doing it right, you wouldn't have fallen out," I pointed out cheerfully. "Jeesh!" he said, "Jesus!" and left both of us alone the rest of the evening. High fives, teammate!

I didn't do this just when NH was around. I also had a running game going with a male friend who continually tried my patience with innuendo along that same line. "Why aren't we sleeping together?" "Is that why we don't sleep together?" We don't sleep together, dear one, because it ruins friendships, just see if it doesn't. "I'd like to test that theory." And I kept count. "That's 37." It was more a game than anything, and one that I wasn't really winning (but he wasn't getting laid, either, so maybe it was a tie). It did, however, hone my skills. That and several years of back-and-forth with gay men gave me a competitive mouth. I'd like to think that I didn't start anything. I only volleyed back when it came into my court and I only go for the joke, not really the kill.

Still, it does keep the gene pool at a distance, dunnit? In the end, I had to be approached by someone gently. I then gave back the same way. I'm just a parrot, repeating what I hear. Y'all keep that in mind when you go a-courtin'.

I Have a Sock Full of Cash ... On My Arm Pt. 2

I made myself a nest and prepared to continue reading for three hours. Fortunately, I had more than one book. The magazine stand seemed to carry commuter comestibles, such as coffee and donuts. It was actually nice and quiet. There was none of the bustle and noise of Penn Station. Okay, it was creepy, but I became absorbed in my reading and time, in consideration of the surroundings, crept by.

When he first came in, I had noticed him. You can’t help but notice when one person is added to a building with only two others in it. This likewise made him aware of me. He was dressed in a grey sweatshirt and pants, with a stocking cap of navy blue to keep off the Boston February chill. He bought a coffee and donut from the magazine stand and chatted with the proprietor. Casting about for a place to sit and enjoy his snack, he picked my bench. I observed his approach from the corner of my eye, trying to look totally involved in my paperback. I wished vainly that he would find somewhere else, but he stopped very close and asked, oh so predictably, “Is this seat taken?”

My memory is not good enough to reproduce the entire conversation. There was a time when I could claim to quote it verbatim, but I am long past that, fortunately for you, my gentle reader. The gist of it was that he was in the Navy and out for his run. He had not behaved well when he was younger, hadn’t paid attention in school, but now he was pulling himself together and planning to go to college on the G.I. Bill. He was handsome and earnest. And he owed it all to Jesus.

I had thought to have escaped that when I left South Carolina. I politely expressed my admiration for his resolve. He thought perhaps that his example might provide inspiration for me. Well, now, that’s curious. I realize that I bumbled my graduate work, and am not the best of students. I was and still am lazy intellectually. Okay, and physically. School was only a lark for me and here was someone who wanted to better himself and was putting himself through the rigors of the military in order to get the wherewithal to go to college. My background, while middle-class, was privileged, probably, compared to his. I was embarrassed. It was with a certain amount of reluctance that I admitted to having been to college and two years of graduate school. I was between jobs at the moment and just traveling to visit friends. I became conscious of the money in the sock on my arm and in my bank account. In our family, talking about money was worse than talking about sex. It was an intensely private thing. Discussing your money was boasting. Out here in the metropolis, it might be dangerous. That’s why I had my money in a sock up my arm.

Somehow I had to convince this young man that I was fine, without letting him know I was sitting on a pile of cash (although there was just a few hundred up my arm, I could call my broker at any time and have him wire me more) and was just waiting to be picked up by a friend without giving away how long I was going to have to wait. Just because he (literally) had Navy written all over him didn’t mean he couldn’t lurk somewhere and bop me on the bean to get whatever it was he wanted. Anyone could get a buzz cut and buy a sweatsuit with “Navy” on it. If he really was in the Navy, maybe he had been on ship for months and wanted ... wanted – aaaaagh! It didn’t bear thinking about!

I was not convincing. Apparently. He couldn’t believe that a.) someone with a college degree would be out of work and surrounded by bags sitting in a railway station; b.) that if I had any money I would be just sitting there; and c.) that an intelligent person would come up with such lame assurances as “I’m okay, I have some crackers and peanut butter with me.” He did eventually get up and leave. I watched him throw away his cup and papers (maybe even the Boston Strangler was tidy – whoa! The Boston Strangler?!) and walk out. I relaxed too soon. He came purposefully back, pulled a dollar out of his pocket and tried to give it to me. He told me I could buy a donut with it. He was so kind and I was such a coward. The realization hit that he actually thought I was homeless. I made a mental note to wash my hair first thing. I refused the dollar as politely as I could. I was not homeless. Were I to give up on New York, I could return to a house on Hilton Head Island, find another job there, or just sponge off my parents.

He finally gave in and left. I was rescued a bit earlier than expected by Temple and Tommy. I told them my story, still a bit shaken, but trying to make it funny. I stayed a bit with Temple at the law school. By the time I was ready to go back to New York, I had a place to stay. In very little time I was working and going to auditions. I didn't have a job all the time, I shared an illegal sublet with Fred who was also in and out of work. In the back of my mind, though, there was the knowledge that I would be able to successfully panhandle. Well, people might give me money, but apparently I had trouble accepting it.

I Have a Sock Full of Cash ... On My Arm Pt. 1

I had been through Pennsylvania Station before when I first arrived in New York. It was bustling and full of places to sit. I had purchased a ticket to Boston to stay with my friend, Temple, when New York finally proved too unwieldy for the likes of me. Although I was leaving, I still planned to go back. A plan, that’s what I needed. My current plan was to stay with Temple at his graduate student dormitory at Harvard University. They had a spare room on his floor for the occasional visitor. I could stay there for a couple of days, but then another visitor was coming and I would have to move out … and into his room.

I had slept in Temple’s room many times before, notably when he won me for a week in the famous “Win A Marf” contest. He had submitted several pages of activities (most of which involved massages) and reasons why he would want me to visit, three letters of recommendation, and an 8x10 inch glossy. At that time he had been fired from Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, probably just by being himself. He talked his way back into his apprenticeship long enough to tell off Jon Jory and quit. One of the reasons I should visit had been that as he had been fired, he had lots of spare time on his hands with which to entertain me. Being the sympathetic sort that I am, I had a glass mug engraved with the motto: “I’ve Been Sacked by ATL.” So, I was slightly disappointed to learn that he had been rehired and then quit. Would this lessen the impact of my gift? And “I Quit ATL” would have saved me some money, if I’d known.

All this is just to show that Temple and I were as close as two non-sexually intimate people could be. I had always been torn about Temple. I would easily slip from adoring him to fearing him, a trait I can now put down to immaturity – mine, too. It’s hard to describe the ease with which Temple lept into emotions. I move very slowly from one feeling to another. Temple could be cracking jokes one minute and in someone’s face and threatening them in another. He never threatened me, but his reactions to another driver cutting him off in a parking lot (jumping out of the car and yelling and waving his fists), scared the bejesus out of me. He’d leap back into the car afterwards, start to back up, and then look over at my horrorstruck face and say, “What?” as if he’d all ready forgotten the whole incident.

Temple was a refuge for me at this time. I’d been spooked out by the empty void in the glasses of Yoko Ono and ran to his side. Okay, I called him and he invited me to stay. He had classes all day, though, and wouldn’t be able to pick me up until after 7 pm. In his first year at Harvard Law School, he did not have a car, so he had to rely on his friend, Tommy McKinley, to drive him to the station. Had I been confident in my public transportation, I could have taken the T on my own. Today I would do that. Back then I would wait mouselike in some hole waiting to be picked up.

I had to be out of my room at the YWCA on Lexington Avenue by a certain time, and although there were plenty of trains going to Boston all day, I thought I would wait at Penn Station until the departure of the one that would drop me off in Boston closest to my pick-up time. There was plenty going on in the station: places to eat, to buy magazines and books, people watching to do. I had bought a book and planted myself on a chair in the waiting area with my luggage around me. My money, rather less than the $500 I’d started out with, real life being an expensive arrangement, was in a kneesock that I kept up my sleeve on my forearm. I had priced money-belts and other security devices before venturing to New York (especially on a train where one slept in a chair – I’d read Emil und die Detective!), but had shown myself to be the apple that didn’t fall far from the tight-wad tree. Instead, I took a favorite tan kneesock that had developed holes, and converted it into an armband that could hold money or my lightweight, nylon wallet. I thought myself very clever. It is a family tradition to believe that anyone could pay for something, but the Smart Person does it himself. Our house was full of things my dad had built or repaired in the most Byzantine method imaginable, such as a ceiling storage area in the garage he [operant word:] tried to chin himself on for the benefit of some prospective home buyers as well as rendering the untrained outsider unable to turn on our television or start his car. This has led me to pointless and time-consuming activities such as making my own coconut milk, graham crackers, puff pastry, etc.

I felt secure in my decision and the plan at hand: read until lunchtime, eat, and read some more until my chosen train departure. Temple and I would have dinner (at his expense, of course, because that’s what he was like: generous to a fault with his parents’ money) after I arrived. I had some of the salt-free, barely-edible, formerly fresh-ground peanut butter and crackers if I got hungry in the meantime. It was all under control.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take New York into account. While Amtrak was not currently killing passengers and gangs of thugs were not roving train stations, I still managed to attract the disruptive element. I was in my chair, reading happily, when a figure stopped in front of me. I looked up to see a seemingly nice little old man standing before me. “Your train!” he said. They hadn’t called my train. My train wasn’t for three hours yet. They had just called a Boston train, but not mine. I tried to deflect him. “No, it’s not –,” I started. “You take this train,” he commanded. He wasn’t official, just an thin, old man, dressed nicely with suit, tie, and a hat. Thinking he might know something I didn’t (although I had no idea how he would know I was on my way to Boston), I got up and took the train. I took one last look to see if he’d wanted my seat, but it was still empty and there were plenty more around.

I can wait just as easily at the Boston station as here, I thought. Boston’s another big city, their station is probably comparable. Ahem. That was before the renovation of South Station. When I arrived that day at South Station, I found a derelict station with one magazine stand and some dingy and vacated retail spaces. The seating was just wooden benches that had no one else on them. Not even bums bothered with South Station. I found a payphone and called Tommy to leave the message that I had arrived early. Tommy, whom I had not met, offered to come and get me, but I decided to take my chances with an “empty” building so that Tommy would not feel obliged to entertain me. It should be an indication of my continued naivety that I preferred a decrepit public space to the comforts of an actual apartment with a Harvard student in it.

The Shayner Yid

After New York I moved to Boston. After doing more theatre there than in New York, I applied for a job at a law firm. My dear, old friend from college, Temple Dickinson (who is not Jewish despite the name ... not that a sensible person would think so, but not all people are sensible and he used to get Hannukah cards from one of the other paralegals) told me that they were always looking for more paralegals at his firm to go through a huge document production in a massive national litigation. And, despite my connection with Temple, I was hired.
I met some great people, most of them a great deal younger than I was because they were either just out of college or on summer break from same. One of my favorites was Jere Beck. Jere was a paralegal who was desperate to write comedy. He would write small jokes on post-it notes and read them to us during break. I can't describe Jere without referring to his brother, who looked just like Elliot Gould. So, picture Elliot Gould shorter, slender, and very very blond with bluer than blue eyes. Jere was a nervous type. He literally exploded with laughter when he found something funny.
When Jere was young, his parents split up. He said it was all for the best because they fought constantly and lop-sidedly. His mother would yell and his father would shut down. He'd leave the room and she would follow him, keeping up her end of the argument. Unlike his other siblings, Jere took sides. His father, in his opinion, was wrong, dead wrong, and that was the end of the story. Being the nervous type myself, I can just imagine how painful that was to listen to.
Jere and I were friends, just friends. I was going through a fallow period on that front at that time, one of many, so I was used to it. One day he invited me over to watch a movie, one of his favorites. He was even going to drive me so either I didn't have to take the T or he wouldn't have to explain to me how to get to his place. Jere had a car ... in Boston. I was carfree since my move to New York. He said that his family was coming over. I had heard so much about them, I thought it could be interesting or stressful, but I picked interesting.
Because he drove me straight from work, we got to his place early. He had a lot to do to get ready, etc., so he asked if it would be all right to leave me in the living room alone. That was fine with me.
His mother showed up early. She was tall and pleasant, if a bit intense. Again I felt the eyes on me. Jere introduced us and went on with his mysterious tasks. His mother asked me what my name was again and how it was spelled. Then she asked me when my birthday was. I don't like giving out my birthday. I don't mind people knowing how old I am, but I don't like giving out the date. She was sweet but insistant and I got this bizarre idea that, like my old friend Kathy's mother use to do, she was going to have a private investigator check me out to make sure I was suitable and not just some ... blonde shikseh out for the family money. That didn't seem logical. Because Jere had sided with his mother, his father wouldn't give him any money. But I supposed Mrs. Beck didn't know I knew that. She took out a small pencil and a piece of paper and wrote it all down. Then, after studying it for a minute, she gave me a horoscope reading. Well, hot-damn! I can't tell you what a relief that was. I had been picturing trying to reassure her that I was not after Jere and our relationship was not like that (which inevitably leads to further explanations about how this could be despite the son in question being a "real catch").
Slowly, the rest of the family arrived. We all sat around the room and watched "The Coco-Cola Kid" - a movie that I wouldn't show my mother.
It seemed a rather odd evening, although I couldn't put my finger on it. Was I so imposing that Jere felt he needed his whole family on hand to keep the evening from looking like a date?
It was all explained the next day, although it didn't make me feel any better, when Jere thanked me for coming over.
"That was the first time my parents have been in the same room together without fighting since before the divorce," he told me. I was there to make sure they behaved themselves. He hadn't told me, of course, so that I wouldn't be nervous.
This is not unlike my elderly aunt Cordella not telling us that she intended to die on the trip we all went on to Europe in 1972. She told my mother this on the plane on the way back. "I wanted to die while I was doing something I loved," she said. My mother had cared for Cordella all through Europe, where locations were recalled by how many angina attacks she had, as in, "Oh, Salzburg, that's where I had three!" "Cordella!" my mother shouted over the airplane noise, "we wouldn't have known what to do with your body!" "Oh, that wouldn't have been a problem," she said, "I looked it up before we left." "But you didn't tell us!" my mother pointed out. "I didn't want you to worry," Cordella replied. "You couldn't have told us if you were dead!" she was told. Oh, she hadn't thought of that.